Instructions
Respond to two of your classmates by providing personalized, detailed and relevant feedback to
their posts. Each post should be no less than 150 words. 300 words total. Each post should be
different. That is, resist the urge to copy and paste your responses to the other peer.
Foucault can be challenging, and helping each other comprehend him is key. To guide your
responses:
● Comment on your peer’s comprehension of the text.
● Is there anything your peer has missed in their summaries that you can add to their
understanding of his main ideas?
● Is there anything they have written to illuminate the text for you? What is it?
● To get full credit, quote the reading for each peer to support your responses. Use the
following template, “to illustrate/explain/clarify my point, Foucault writes “insert quote”
(insert page number).
Student #1 – Chan Young Kong
The Introduction – 135
The book, Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault first illustrates how a soldier is
viewed from another persons point of view as the years passes by. In the beginning of the
seventeenth century, a soldier was someone that you can recognize close and far; and that had
certain features of his body that makes him who he is (Foucault 135). The soldier has to be
someone who is very upbeat, strong and with a good head on their soldiers. But, later on during
the eighteenth century, the individual becomes someone with great courage, firm and of high
standards. The body was first discovered as an object and of high power (Foucault 136).
Discipline was seen as a recipe of domination. Rank is used to arrange disciplinary spaces.
The Art of Distributions – 141
When Foucault speaks about distribution, he is talking about how the bodies inhibit space
in the personal and non-personal settings. Two main ideas that are necessary for discipline are
enclosure and dividing. For example, a bell being rung when it is time to return to work or class
(Foucault 142). Individuals will know how to manage their time better. The dispersion of
disciplinary space is needed for discipline. Not only are the specific spots assigned to meet the
requirement to oversee and disrupt potentially harmful communications but they also to provide
a useful space (Foucault 143). The table was a tactic of dominance and a tool of awareness in the
eighteenth century.
The Control of Activity – 149
Foucault speaks about the control of activity in terms of the body being an object in 5
ways; the time-table, temporal elaboration of the act, correlation of the body and gesture, the
body object articulation and exhaustive use. The time-table established rhythms, mandates
specific occupations, and control the repetition cycle (Foucault 149). The body moves in certain
gestures and each has their own sense of direction. The operative framework of the lowest act is
controlled by the pattern of repetition. Each of the interactions that the body must have with the
item that it manipulates is outlined by discipline.
The Organization of geneses – 156
When talking about geneses in Discipline and Punish, regulation and time is important.
The disciplines that examine space, separate apart, and restructure processes must also be
interpreted as time-calculating machinery. By giving possibilities for regular intervention, it
specializes and breaks away training in order to qualify individual bodies as productive
disciplined bodies.
The composition of forces – 162
As for the composition of forces, Foucault wants to remind us that the body can be
something that can be replaced or even so moved. The body can also be seen as a machine
(Foucault 164). Being disciplined controls the different types of tactics being used of an
individual. Military service begins in childhood and continues into maturity, with bodies trained
to react and respond to these systems. The combination of forces requires a system of direct
commands. Verbal orders serves as a way of signalization (Foucault 167).
Student #2 – Kaylin Fernandez
In the Introduction of Michel Foucault’s “Docile Bodies” He indicates and gives clear examples
of what he believes bodies are. This harsh but truthful introduction sets the tone for the rest of
the article by indicating and capitalizing on how governments can profit off of bodies and use
them, militarize them, and create powerful gain from bodies as well. This article offers a lot of
evidence and information on how this theory is being applied, an example of this would be how
Foucault uses the best examples of soldiers. Soldiers are tactically disciplined to listen to every
command with smoothness and ease because it has been so engraved into them that it should be
like second nature to them.
The art of distributions goes on to talk about discipline even further. Taking away from the
individual and removing them from the group will simply liken their chances of obeying and
being submissive to whichever power they are submitting to. In other words Foucault wants the
reader to realize that simple discipline can recollect even the most chaotic of places. This section
of the article ends with elaborating on the control that disciplinary distribution truly has.
The control of activity section describes how for centuries religion have used these powerful
controlling tactics and these same rules and regulations have been used on the masses, and these
same rules have been fixed and updated in away that benefit those in power for their own benefit
by controlling places like school and many more examples given by Foucalt. It goes on to talk
about how discipline is not just part of the mind, knowing what to do and exactly how to do it,
but it goes further than that to the exact step your body will take because of the submission of the
mind.
The organization of geneses says that in order for a person to submit they first must believe and
feel like they can trust you, this is just one way to control. Another way would be to offer them
information you know, this only works if the person offering said knowledge is in a position of
power or a higher ranking then the person who is being controlled. The person who is being
controlled obviously won’t submit unless there is a benefit to them submitting in the first place, it
is human nature to want the most benefit of something. People in power often reward the person
being controlled so they can keep them under control.
The composition of forces discovers that the person in power must have a level of clarification
when making or giving orders to the people in submission. This also reveals how even though
they may be in power a person being controlled may not listen to them if they don’t present
themselves properly. When they ( the person in power)show themselves properly, they will listen
and take every order almost immediately. In conclusion to this section I believe that the
comparison of how army tactics work on masses is the biggest take away from this article.